I regret to admit that Mr. Woods did not toss feverishly about his bed all through the silent watches of the night. He was very miserable, but he was also twenty-six. That is an age when the blind bow-god deals no fatal wounds. It is an age to suffer poignantly, if you will; an age wherein to aspire to the dearest woman on earth, to write her halting verses, to lose her, to affect the clichés of cynicism, to hear the chimes at midnight—and after it all, to sleep like a top.
So Billy slept. And kind Hypnos loosed a dream through the gates of ivory that lifted him to a delectable land where Peggy was nineteen, and had never heard of Kennaston, and was unbelievably sweet and dear and beautiful. But presently they and the Colonel put forth to sea—on a great carved writing-desk—fishing for sharks, which the Colonel said were very plentiful in those waters; and Frederick R. Woods climbed up out of the sea, and said Billy was a fool and must go to college; and Peggy said that was impossible, as seventeen hundred and fifty thousand children had to be given an education apiece, and they couldn't spare one for Billy; and a missionary from Zambesi Land came out of one of the secret drawers and said Billy must give him both of his feet as he needed them for his working-girls' classes; and thereupon the sharks poked their heads out of the water and began, in a deafening chorus, to cry, "Feet, feet, feet!" And Billy then woke with a start, and found it was only the birds chattering in the dawn outside.
Then he was miserable.
He tossed, and groaned, and dozed, and smoked cigarettes until he could stand it no longer. He got up and dressed, in sheer desperation, and went for a walk in the gardens.
The day was clear as a new-minted coin. It was not yet wholly aired, not wholly free from the damp savour of night, but low in the east the sun was taking heart. A mile-long shadow footed it with Billy Woods in his pacings through the amber-chequered gardens. Actaeon-like, he surprised the world at its toilet, and its fleeting grace somewhat fortified his spirits.
But his thoughts pestered him like gnats. The things he said to the roses it is not necessary to set down.